[RFC] Going Native. (With Edits)

[Dartz]

One of the handles should be familiar. Thought it'd be an amusing in-joke, but nobody spotted it.

Anyway - the last of the extant parts. The story's had a lot of the first half cut out to streamline it and remove some deadweight. But this part's just as it was, just concatenated.

---
For the first time in over a year, the rain on the window didn't wake me up.

My phone woke me in the morning with Darth Vader’s march. My hand grasped for the nightstand where it normally charged, finding only free space. Fingers fumbled for the sound, finding it buzzing on the floor.

“Why aren’t you at school?”

No hello. No, where were you? Nothing at all. The fog of sleep hung over my brain. Showing the quick wit expected of a new born hero, I answered.

“Huh?”

“It’s ten in the morning, and the school just called your mother.”

I bolted awake. My head snapped around. Akiko’s apartment.

My mouth goldfished a moment. One glance at the phone’s screen confirmed the time “I overslept.”

“What were you even….”

“I thought you left that on silent.”

Akiko stood bleary-eyed in the doorway, one hand rubbing the sleep from one eye. A pink hello-kitty nightdress hung loose on her slim body.

Silence answered from the phone.

Shit.

“Oh. I see,” said the oulfella after a few moments. The grin on his lips carried through his voice. “Just be careful. I amn’t ready to be a grandfather just yet.”

My mouth opened, ready to deny everything before realising the alternative probably wouldn’t be much better.

I threw a glance at Akiko, covering her mouth to hide a giggle.

“Your mother will go mental if you don’t give her a call. You know how she worries.”

“Yeah, Yeah, I’ll call”

Probably not.

“I’ve to go to do some business this afternoon so you’ll need to open the bar up after school.”

“Right, right,” I sighed, giving Akiko a tired look.

The call cut off.

She stood in her bedroom doorway wearing just that single nightshirt. I sat wearing nothing but a light bedsheet and boxer shorts.

A smile flickered between us, a spark that threatened to catch into an ember.

“What is it?” she asked.

I held the phone open in my hand as an explanation.

“Real life.”

The moment hung. The weight of ‘real life’ settled on both our shoulders. Back to the mundane world, as if the last night never happened.

“Ano…” she killed the silence. “I need to edit that video.”

“And I need a shower,” I said.

The heavy smell of teenager lingered in the air.

She disappeared back into the darkness her hacking den. My bare feet found warm wooden floor, along all the aches and pains you’d expect after a night of paraheroics. Muscles groaned and complained at being asked to stand, in my chest arms and legs. Habit had me rubbing at my knees, soothing phantom pains that no longer lingered.

Only a faint stiffness remained.

Thank you Panacea.

She’d even patched up the cut on my arm, and I’d all but forgotten about that. Not even a scar remained. Only the aches in my muscle and a fading pink line across the bridge of my nose and cheek proved I’d done anything at all last night.

My mind spun, trying to understand just how in the hell I’d gotten to this point.

That happened.

That really happened.

-

Cold rain soaked through my jacket, sending shivers through my body. Akiko clung to me, gripping tight as I powered the bike through traffic. And I really didn’t know what I wanted to do right now.

Just something.

Something had to be done.

Faced with the enormity of saving the entire world, of getting every single little thing right, the only thing I could do was jump. Get me the fuck out of here, I can’t handle all this.

Faced with the opportunity to do one little thing - to try without knowing the consequences - every fiber of my body begged to charge in, boots and all, blades swinging.

Winslow waited for us and my decision, looming grey against the dead-television sky. The yard sat empty, only a few smokers taking shelter under the bike-sheds. Shite weather and gnawing nicotine made fast friends from otherwise enemies.

Cold fingers closed around my body as she saddled off the bike, letting the rain crawl down the back of my jacket. She stood, helmet under her arm, waiting, letting the rain soak down her hair.

My fingers raised the goggles off my face. She handed the helmet to me, wearing a wan smile.

“After school?”

“I am busy after seven.”

“Right.”

Prizes for guessing with what.

Jaeger and Info-chan stood in the yard, trading glances as if we’d both shared some sort of mutual apocalypse, transcending the mundane into the new adrenaline-fired reality beyond.

It didn’t have to be this way. We both had our own Power.

I got a fast bike. We could hit the road and get out of the city. We’re old enough, we could probably muddle through with my Power and her intelligence. She’s smart. I can fight. Figure out where to go. How to get there. We’d make our own path. Head north to Portland or South to Portsmouth. Just hit the motorway and gone.

Try for the real American dream. No matter how badly fucked up you are, you can always start again and have a chance.

But real life didn’t work like that. She’d already said no. I knew why.

The clockwork normality waited.

The fat security guard at the door eyeballed us, maybe recalling he hadn’t seen either of us go by that morning. Inside, lunchtime thronged. Air thick with pine-scent detergent and teen spirit, consumed us both.

The grey cloak of normality laid over the neon of last night, the real world swirling around while I compulsively refreshed the cape world on my phone.

Who thought people being fascinated with me would be so fascinating?

I drifted through the school, my mind swinging back to the previous night, the rush of soaring between buildings echoing in my veins, begging to go back for one more go.

A chirp from my phone warned of another response to a watched thread. Another Jaeger comment. Another quick shot of adrenaline and a giddy smirk

Me, the sour mannered arsehole from Winslow, secretly wire-swinging hero and beater of Nazis Jaeger.

It felt like the ultimate prank, like being a coockoo in the nest. The Empire kids here had no idea what I’d done.

The mess in my locker welcomed. My hands went through the automatic process of stuffing the afternoon’s books into my bag, as if I’d been there all day. I sure didn't miss having to carry a full day's worth of schoolbooks around on my back. American High Schools won in that respect, at least.

Footsteps approached from behind. Tension rippled through my body, bracing for a fight. A glance back brought a smile to my face, and a flood of relief to my body.

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Glory Girl’s skirt,” Damo answered with a luscious grin, settling himself back against his locker.

A giddy thrill rolled through my body.

“I guess you saw the video,”

“Half the school did.”

Holy fuck. I breathed, letting the feeling pass through me. Half the school. And over four thousand views on the web already, gaining a thousand an hour.

“So. Sophia?” he asked.

“She wanted to recruit me to do some stupid vigilante thing. I told her to fuck off.” I said, with a shrug from my shoulders. “She won’t bother us again.”

I fucking hope she won’t.

“So, You got it?”

His tone turned tentative, almost like he was asking me for drugs or something. My fingers found the memory stick in my pocket, offering it to him.

“Full video. I’ll email the FileBomb link later,”

He snatched it with a grin.

“Wicked cool.”

“Ayuh,” I nodded. “Aki’s plan should work…”

His jaw hinged open, looking up at me like I’d spontaneously sprouted a second head on my shoulder.

“What?”

He blinked, before raising a single hand to wave it off. “Nothing.”

“So what’d I miss?”

“Usual shit.” He said with a sigh. “It’s Thursday in Winslow high. And us normal people had to pick up the slack while you two did something more interesting than algebra.”

“I’ll bring you next time, I promise…” I teased.

“Fuck no.” his locker door slammed open. His hands searched for a folder, finding it in moment. “I like not getting the shit kicked out of me, thanks.” He offered it to me. “I’d rather do a dozen math assignments.”

I took it, thumbing through it quickly. The mundane Mill demanded that Paraheroics wait. Assignments needed to be done. We could have fun while the balance that kept the Mill safe toppled. Karma would fuck everyone if this aspidistra ever stopped flying.

“You did it all?”

“Yup,” he nodded, almost boasting.

Reality demanded. I unzipped my backpack to slip the folder in. A heavy lump of plastic and steel slumped over with a thunk, drawing the eye.

“Oh fuck me,” he breathed. A black Glock stared back up at him with its cyclops barrel, resting on top of my own notepad.

Yeah. I brought a gun to school. Just so as you know, the same one I picked up on the roof. It didn’t just vanish into thin air.

“It’s going for a swim on the way home,” I assured him. “I just didn’t want to leave it with Aki.”

His face fell, catching what I meant immediately.

“She okay?”

“I amn’t sure.”

Really, how else could I sum it up? He looked back at me, reading, sensing more than I wanted to or could, talk about. This whole fucked up situation hung in the air above us like a Vogon fleet.

“I hear you,” he said, taking breath. “But what can you do?”

That almost sounded like an accusation. Why don’t you do something? Guilt stung. I swallowed it.

“I thought I could get in touch with the Protectorate.” I glanced at him, gauging his expression. “Help her out, and I’ll join up….”

Bite the bullet.

“You dumbass,” he cut back. “They wouldn’t give a shit about some random girl. They’d just let the cops arrest her and some judge will nail her to the wall to set a big public example for the benefit of the rest of America’s innocent youth.” He breathed. His stare convinced me.

“You know how it works man?”

I wanted to disagree. I knew I couldn’t. It’d happen all too easily. She’d live long enough to lose her life to the oxymoronic justice system of America. What was that Frank Castle quote? This isn’t justice, this is punishment. Especially after Bakuda’s upcoming bombing campaign.

They’d hit her with every single one, just to show they’d nailed someone to the wall.

I gave him a wan smile, glancing down at Jaeger’s own PM box on my phone.

“It’s okay. They didn’t even answer me.”

He’d find out why soon enough. I already knew. Whatever I did, I’d do it by myself.

--

Someone once defined a Trigger event as a little death – some eejit who didn’t know what that meant in French, probably. Whether that came from some Let’s-read on the internet I knew or some offhand comment on PHO, I couldn’t remember.

Just like death.

Just as unwanted. Just as awful. Just as irrevocable

What you are out the other side, isn’t what you were when you came in. The worms go in. Unlike death, they don’t go out.

I’m trying to put it in terms you can understand. I’m here now, you’re there still. I know you’re looking in at me, and I’m trying to think of a way you’d understand it. A quick, succinct way, to frame it in a way you’d grok right in the chest.

I think I’d call it a personal September 11th​.

You never forget it.

It sits there, lording itself over you. It’s the thing that finally beat you – that cracked your personal aura of invincibility and left you ruined in the dirt.

You failed. You broke. It’s your fault you weren’t strong enough to push through.

And then it sits itself there as the new normal. Completely fucked up and changed forever, but you can’t really imagine it ever being any different.

You wall it off, guarding yourself against that one moment, against anything that even hints at it coming again. You try to step forward, to stand up and then it’s there with its tongue tickling in your mind’s ear.

“Hey, you remember that time when you….”

Remember that time you thought you could save the world? When you thought you could work out every single little path and do the right thing at the right moment?

You can’t forget.

But you can rebuild, I guess.

That night, I learned I couldn’t take on the world.

Last night, I learned I could do things that mattered.

And this? This mattered. Akiko mattered.

I didn’t want to save the world. I thought I had to. I thought wrong and got punished for it.

But I wanted to do this. Call it selfish. Call it mad. Call it the backseat driver in my head. The wider consequences just didn’t matter anymore compared to losing Aki.

My pen scratched through idea after idea in my notebook, scribbling through the problem. This is me. This is all of me. Who I used to be a year ago, and who I am now working together. This is me at my strongest. This is my best chance.

This is the Tao of Scotty and this is my true power, while my Power eked out the day to help me think, buying time, iteration after iteration. Sketch. Scribble. Erase from time to buy more.

I can do this.

Jaeger can do this.

How do I neutralise her bombs? Turn it around. First how do I build them?

How do I build a Bakuda-type glance-and-boom detonator?

Approach it like an engineer. This is my final product. How do I get to this point? What does it do when it's done? What exactly does it need to do to function at a top level? Now, break it down into sub-functions. What do each of these individual components have to work? Break it down even further if you have to. Down into steps, then build back up from there into a full path.

So, getting each individual sub-function to work. What exactly does it need to do, what're the constraints? Make a list of what needs to be done.

Analyse a problem. Understand it. Take what I already know. Learn what I need to know. See how I can build a solution out of that. This isn't Tattletale bullshit. This isn't Tinkertech. This is Engineering.

I need x, y and z technologies to make it work. If I amn't sure about Y, make assumptions, If I assume I can find unobtanium hardware that'll do y for the time being, how do x and z work with that? What would it look like? Has anyone built anything like that y before, and how? Chances are if it's possible, it's in the Radioshack catalogue with a pricetag. If it still doesn't exist, it has to be invented.

How do I invent something? The same way. Take what I know. Either something that does a similar job and already exists to act as a starting point, or something that can do a similar job, even if it's not supposed to. I might not have Y, but V is almost Y, it just needs a little bit added to it. That's a lot easier to do that do Y from scratch. Maybe even patch it together from a whole lot of I's because it sort of looks like three of them joined together.

Once you have a defined path, that roadmap towards success, the rest is just assembly and testing.

Uncounted dead hours in three left me with a notebook filled with notes on how to make a remote, vision-targeted and auto-triggered bomb system.

How I’d do it. How I hoped Bakuda might’ve done it.

Followed by the awful realisation that if anyone in Winslow ever saw what’d I’d drawn, and what sat waiting in my locker, they’d probably assume something entirely different. Gladly’s smiling face threatened a doom more crushing than anything as he stalked between the desks, waffling on about the collapse of the Soviet Union or something pointless. My Power saved me from suspicion, at least.

Ask me a question. Step back for an answer.

My Power dominated his.

I gave the answer. “Leonid Toptunov.”

I’m sure you’ve heard of his one bad day. It spread itself over most of Russian and western Europe, in both universes.

“Huh,” he blinked. I shot him a victorious grin as the words died in his throat. “Well, anyway. This would go on to…..”

At that point, my mind switched over to next channel, lurid with possibility. Why have the Learning Channel, when you have Parahumans Live? The unreality of afternoon class melted away beneath the glare of the new real. The real world, with its adrenaline, its strength, the ability to stand up and matter. To do something that people would actually talk about.

That’s me. They’re all talking about me like I’m some sort of hero. Those snatched glances at phones under the table. The buzz of my phone in my pocket.

They talked about me.

My power buzzed along, changing, reworking, tweaking, driving.

Herding.

Let it.

Nothing else mattered, even as my body zombie’d through the motions of life, my mind existed elsewhere. Papers were handed to their owners. Payment received. I didn’t do any of it.

Real life demanded I suffer detention. Jaeger begged to just run for it. To break through those doors and live in the thrill. Maybe I could blame the friend in the back of my mind banging the hammer. Maybe that just gave me the excuse.

I forced myself to go. Appearances had to be maintained or people would get suspicious. Don’t fuck this up before I even start.

Damo waited for me outside the library door. His face radiated with barely contained excitement.

“You see the news man? About the bank?”

I knew what he meant. He didn’t need to show it to me on his phone’s screen. Some no-name villain with ‘bug control’ powers.

“Already read it, man”

Years ago.

--

Time on the bike meant time for my head to clear. Splitting lanes inches from death had that effect. Mortal risk smothered all other worries. Wind the throttle on and watch the needles dance as the world turned backwards, snatching the holeshot between two buses.

Racing on the razor’s edge of death brought a funny sort of peace. Nothing mattered but survival. No space remained for anything else.

I stopped outside the Market, lingering on the idling bike for a few moments in thoughtless contemplation. Heavy eyes stared back up at me from the reflection on speedometer glass. I killed the engine, listening to it ping softly to itself as it cooled between my legs.

My hands grasped tight, confirming I really did live in this body, then released.

Do I really want to do this?

A slow breath gave pause for any doubts to surface. A few moments of consciously consciousless thinking let my mind wander wordlessly through itself and its own desires and dreams.

Nothing.

“I want to do it,”

It couldn’t be justified. It couldn’t be sane.

It just felt right.

Rain and the evening news kept the market mostly empty. Stalls had already begun to close. A few of the last stragglers glanced at me as I walked past, making a bee-line to the same electronics seller as the day before. Part of me hoped he hadn’t fucked off early because of the rain. Part of me smirked at the prank being played on the ones who still remained.

Could anyone tell?

Last night’s hero going out incognito to buy parts and equipment. Meanwhile, Jaeger’s thread sat idle, already forgotten about in the buzz over the new villain in town.

Everybody loved a good villain, I guess.

The same old man from Nagasaki waited, still smiling. He took more money than he did the last time we met, emptying my poker winnings. Fuckit anyway, I could win more.

Next stop. Aki’s apartment, after a quick blast across town.

The gangs lay low. Police and Protectorate made themselves conspicuous. The city air crackled with tension, heavy as an oncoming thunderstorm. Hot sweat and cold rainwater spray soaked through my jacket.

The cordon around the bank ground rush hour to a halt. I filtered through on the bike. A twist of a wrist and a leather pannier relieved a blind Pontiac driver of a wing mirror after he tried to pinch me against the side of a street bus.

Meanwhile, the Undersiders stashed the takings of their robbery in the trainyard. Where and when, I didn’t know. What time Bakuda showed up tomorrow, I didn’t know, just that it’d happen.

Hanging around the yard meant risking discovery. Meanwhile, real life begged me to take part instead.

Fuck’s sake.

Going to Bakuda meant getting screwed by Winslow and taking the hit on my personal life – maybe getting discovered. Fighting Bakuda head on meant…..

….Maybe I could do it. Come swinging out of nowhere and catch her completely by surprise.

That’d come as a right shock.

But then she’s spent hours wiring the whole place into her own personal explosive domain. Gangbangers would be crawling over it for hours beforehand

Fuck!

Instinct begged to fight. Sanity warned me not to.

Maybe with The Undersiders help?

The idea floated for a moment, before I sunk it.

Why the fuck would they help me? Answer me that?

I had my own plan. One I could do, by myself. No Undersiders. No Protectorate. No fucking problem. Just between you and me, as the villain says

Y’know how Skitter learned the whole rule through fear thing from Bakuda? Right, well, the one thing Skitter did different – or would do different, or whatever….


People feared Skitter. People didn’t hate Skitter.

People feared Bakuda. People will hate Bakuda.


It’s better to be feared than be loved. But you should never let yourself become hated.

Machiavelli said something like that. Once the fear’s gone, what’s keeping the people who hate your guts from hanging you with them?

The bike came to a halt outside Aki’s apartment block. The first few evening lights already shone out from small windows set into a browned steel facade. A bicycle rack gave me a handy place to strap up the bike, beside a garish Kawasaki with four shining stacked exhaust-pipes taller than me, a purple candy fairing aimed at the sky, velour seats and a gleaming chrome sissy bar.

A Bososuku bike. Little Yaklets lived here.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I pushed open the front door. Cold metal creaked. Two men stood inside, staring me down.

I stared back.

Yeah. You want to make something of it? I got shit to do here and I am not an easy fucking target. The pair traded glances, grasping at pockets of their ill-fitting jackets. Their bodies tensed, a few whispers being traded. Neither of them really carried that gangland swagger, but they still carried knives. A familiar weight in my jeans pocket soothed.

Tension crackled across my skin. An unfamiliar weight hung in my jacket, threatening a more dangerous option.

I passed. They said nothing.

Thank Christ.

Whatever made them nervous, it wasn’t me.

Bloody Bakuda.

A lift opened at the back of the lobby, going down. A quick jog carried me inside. One finger pushed the button for Aki’s floor, and another used the ‘door-close’ button to trip the fireman’s override.

The poor bugger in the basement would have to wait a little longer.

The ride up gave me time to try ignore the Katakana graffiti scrawled on the mirror on the back wall, and the rough looking teenager in the mirror

Since when did I become the person you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley?

Crack. Thump.

The moment hung over the back of my mind like an albatross offering the answer. Yep. You did that.

Fucked if it matters. Fuck Sophia for dredging up shite I thought I dealt with. The door opened and cut the thought off.

The same corridor I’d walked through last night led me to Akiko’s door. The same walk, but a different feeling. Nervous energy crackled at the tips of my fingers. My heart drummed inside my chest. My mouth parched, a sick sensation crawling up the back of my throat.

The doorway waited. Apartment 402.

A funny little thing, that. A coincidence that’d mean nothing to nobody not familiar with early 90’s anime from another universe. My hand clenched in sympathy. One deep breath gave me the nerve to knock on her door.

My knuckles rapped once.

Silence answered.

I tried again.

Rapid shuffles answered from inside, fumbling for something. My phone buzzed in my pocket. My fingers flipped it open. A message sat onscreen

Aki ::U outsid

“Yeah”, I answered, tentatively.

My fingers slipped the phone into my pocket, grasping something heavy. My body went rigid as the door unlocked, every nerve anticipating the ambush.

The door cracked. Light shafted across the floor from inside. Tension crawled through my body. My feet stepped back.

It crept open.

Akiko stood, wearing the face of a kicked puppy expecting the next boot to drop. My body relaxed in an instant.

“Sumimasen,” she breathed “Ah. Everything is here,”

The tension crept back, gnawing at the pit of my stomach. The shadows inside morphed into things other than curtains and chairs. A flash of brass mutated into the spark of a blade. The steel frame of a chair transformed into a gun lurking under the table.

“Everything Okay?”

No.

“Yes,” she waved it off. “Okay,”

The smile that pulled across her lips couldn’t have been more fake if it’d been cast in plastic. It chilled.

I following her in, shuffling my feet out of my boots to leave them by the door. Only one other pair of shoes stood beside them. The dishes had been cleaned from the sink. The sheets I’d left on the couch had been meticulously folded away. The scent of fresh forest flowers clung to every surface, mingling with the nose-tingling spice of Chicken Katsu.

A single microwave dinner sat half-eaten on the kitchen table, beside her laptop.

“Everything is in the closet,” she said. “In the bags under the coats.”

Aki stepped around me like a child in field of landmines. I swallowed, sensing the weight in the air. Part of me wondered what’d happened. Part of me knew the answer and didn’t want to think about it.

Fuck it. Time to nibble on the crust of the shit sandwich.

“Aki,” She looked at me. I breathed. The words caught in my throat. I found different ones. “Will you be giving Cho her assignment tomorrow?”

“Ah…” she stopped, appalled for a moment. Her eyes stared at the second head on my shoulder, wondering for a moment. “I will get it done.”

Jaeger’s begged for me to go anyway, but that decided it. Stick with the original plan.

Sorry. I amn’t going to be doing anything awesome and worthy of fanart tomorrow.

“Thanks,” I said. “I need to get to work.”

“Ja ne,” she said, her mind already on other things.

She had real shit to do. So did I. Teenage problems seemed so small again when faced with actual you-will-die-if-you-bollock-this-up consequences.

Time to grow up.

Again.

I glanced at my phone while walking down the corridor. Dinah hadn’t made the news yet. The plot moved on, irrespective of whether I cared about it or not. It didn’t matter. This did.

The mammy wondered where I’d gone.

I didn’t answer.

Time to go to work. Real life still demanded I participate, even while my body ached to be elsewhere. The manoeuvre gear hung off my back in two bags, clattering as I walked. The lift carried me down, my head drumming with ideas the whole time. My fingers drummed on the handrail.

The door opened. My feet carried me outside. The Kawasaki had gone. A figure loomed over my bike with its back to me.

“Get away from that!”

My voice echoed back off the glass walls of the building opposite. The figure sprang back, catching his own heel on a footpath crack, falling over backwards onto the flat of his arse with a thump. Both bags dropped from my shoulder with a clatter, my hand already clasping for the weight by my hip.

Fucking thieves.

“Whoa dude!” he yelped, pushing himself away with his hands. “Just looking. Seriously man.”

Panic widened his eyes.

Oh. Right.

My body fizzled, tension shaking through my frame. Shallow breaths waited for the attack. The hairs on my neck tickled as they always did, expecting the hit from behind.

I glanced back.

I glanced at him, sitting.

It hit me in the face.

What the fuck is going wrong with me?

“Sorry bud,” I said, offering him a hand instead. He grasped it, his grip warm despite the rain. The red mist parted and I became human again. My Power quietened, defeated.

The light of humanity shone in the kids eyes, a nervous smile crawling across his lips.

“Yeah. I understand man. No offence taken.”

My body relaxed after I pulled him to his feet. We both took a moment to stand, both expecting the next shoe to drop. Bright eyes in the centre of a broad, clean Korean face stared at me, still not sure if the ragged looking Irishman wouldn’t reveal a set of brass knuckles with a swastika on them.

“Honda four,” he said, looking down at the bike.

“Yeah?” I answered.

Distant sirens rose above the night air, carrying over the top of skyscrapers. The gangers inside loomed in the shadows at the back of my mind, already sneaking up on me while I stood talking.

I swallowed it with a breath.

“That’s a piece of history. The first of the four cylinders,” he placed a hand on the blue paint on the tank. Fingertips stained the paint.

Not quite the last V8. And he’d never heard of Henderson or Motto Guzzi, but that could be forgiven.

“The oulfella hates it,” I breathed, forcing myself to relax.

“Huh?”

“He was always into the Kawasaki’s instead. Threatened to disown me for buying a Honda,”

He threw me a broad grin. “Hate to break it to you man. Your old man’s right.”

My hand settled on the cool metal of the fuel tank. The slight against the machine’s honour would have to be defended, somehow.

"Old Kawasakis are for old men,”

“And old Honda’s…”

“For people who just want to get places and can’t afford something new.”

“Hmm,” he offered me his hand.

I took it with a firm grip and shook.

“Be seeing you, “ I said.

“You too man. Take it easy.”

He left me outside, still holding the fading warmth of his grip in my hand

A few moments of genuine human interaction – no Power, no future, no tomorrow – just a shared moment over a motorcycle. A few moments could bandage the soul. Despite the shard of Scion banging the hammer, I could still be a good person

Jaeger’s costume hung from both sides of the bike’s tail handily enough, both bags staying clear of the exhaust.

I straddled the bike, gripped the bars and kicked the engine to life. No one action could possibly be more badass that kickstarting a motorcycle in one hard booted stomp.

The machine settled into its usual idle as my body settled down. My fingers drummed on the rubber grips while I weighed my chances with a Sober mind.

Right. Time to get to work.

--

Evening traffic thinned as I raced back across the city, Jaeger’s costume clattering against the support frame on the bike’s tail. My power hummed along in the back of my mind, thoughts about taking the direct route to Bakuda coming forward again.

A backfiring gearshift swung the bike around the back of a rumbling bus, dodging a grey cloud of diesel cancer. With a twist of the wrist, throttle butterflies yawned open, sucking gulps of cold night air through four carburettors.

The pub and its dipso's waited for me to open it up. I parked around the back rather than deal with them.

The familiar smell of old farts and beer embraced as the back door opened for me. I shouldered my way in, dragging my costume behind me. The costume found its home beneath a washback tank. My fingers found the electrical switches. Neon signs buzzed their complaints at being forced into life. Stools clattered onto the floor. Chillers rattled and hummed. Cold blue light shone from the fridges.

Even as the grinning leprechaun jeered. I refused to play the diddly-eye shite on the radio. Cape Metal from Thunderblade filled the silence, at a lower volume.

Rule 666 – if it exists, there is metal of it.

The clock on the wall counted down to opening time as I checked the lines to the taps delivered clean, fresh beer to the nozzle, tweaked the carbon dioxide a little to get the gas right, and poured a golden pint for myself.

It settled by the drip tray while I opened the locks and latches on the front door. A man shouldered past me, crashing the door against the wall.

“Took you long enough, kid” he sneered.

My body twitched

“Not by my watch,” I glanced at it on my wrist. “Or City permits”

He stared me down.

I glanced him over, noting the suit he wore, the polished shoes, and the tired look in his pleading eyes, waiting to drink his children's college money. The sort who shuffled to work hung over every morning looking down on the true alcoholics pissing in the gutter.

Sure. the only people who really cared about what time a pub opened at were the ones who depended on it opening.

“Just beer me, kid. Bottle a Schlitz,”

The emphasis on kid, stung.

Right. Time to introduce this bollocks to true Irish cuntstomer service with a reading from the book of O’Leary.

“You can stop being a prick, or your kids can find out what their da looks like sober,”

A cocky grin crossed my lips. He loomed. His fist clenched. My Power crackled to life. I could take him.

“You want to know how to lose a customer?”

“Let dickheads like you in?”

His face reddened. Nostrils flared. The image of a bull crossed my mind. I could do the matador thing.

You’re on my ground mate.

He took a breath, weighed up the options, snorted, and stepped back out the door, leaving me standing, revved up with nothing to fight.

“Kid,”

A bolt ran up my body. The voice came from the doorway behind me, from the mouth of a man my mind dubbed the skinny professor. His thinning hair and spectacles earned him the label. A pair of green eyes looked down on me through the milkbottle glass, judging me like some specimen

“Will yous stop talking down to me like that,” my mouth snapped.

“Well, I don’t know your name.”

Amazing how a pair of raised hands and an apologetic smile can make you feel like an utter shitehawk.

“Ian,” I said.

"Your dad said I could leave these flyers, Ian, you mind taking them?”

His hand extended, offering a sheaf of blue flyers. My hand took them from him. I glanced at the heading. ‘Right to Fire’.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll leave them at the bar,”

The smile he’d forced dissolved between my eyes, the brightness of his eyes fading tired.

“Thanks,” he answered, not really meaning it. Another rusted knight from the Union.

The professor left me alone without saying another word. I set up a workstation at the end of the bar, busying myself in my project as the evening rush began.

Not exactly the picture of a welcoming host, but nobody polite questioned a teenager with schoolbooks and a soldering iron.

“What’re you working on?” someone asked, peering at the breadboards and cables. “Looks complicated,”

One of the usual faces I saw around. Greying around the edges with beady, curious eyes that had to inspect everything. I didn’t know his name, but the oulfella did.

“School project,” I answered, hoping by force of will that he got the message.

“Hmmm?”

He leant towards me, inspecting my work. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“Wouldja fuck off and let me work!” my mouth snapped.

Silence fell. All eyes stared The red mist cleared. He looked at me like a man who’d sat on a live sparkplug. Murmurs circled around the bar. My eyes whipped between faces, all of them focused on me.

Fuck sake.

My Power saved the business from a flurry of shitehawks and their spite reviews.

The clock snapped back. The beady eyes stared, waiting for their answer.

I took a breath. My mind cleared.

“I need to get this bloody thing finished mate,” I said, my voice still sharp. “It’s due in the morning.”

“Ah. Well. Education comes first.”

His smile mirrored the one I forced myself to wear.

“Kid’s gotta get a education,” someone said.

Beady-eye left it at that. One thing nobody would begrudge.

My mind submerged itself into the work, chasing the Frankenstein moment when an idea leaps of the drawing board and becomes a working reality. Every round ordered dragged me up for air for a moment before I dove back in. My body pulled pints. My fantasies went to heroic places.

The first datalogger blinked into life, a tiny red LED pulsing out the newborn heartbeat.

In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God.

Test it. Fix it. Start the next one. Serve another round of beer. Dive back in. Start a little production line behind the bar.

Another drink for the bead-eyed man.

A cold draft of night air rolled up through the cellar door, chilling up my spine. The cellar hatch slammed shut. Footsteps approached from below.

The shotgun waited under the bar.

The oulfella emerged from below. A shudder of horror rolled through me. I shook it off.

He looked down at me, sitting at the bar surrounded by my tools and a steaming soldering iron. I looked up at him, dressed in his old brewery jacket, hair damp from the rain.

“You didn’t call your mother,” he said. Just a fact, not an accusation.

“No credit,” I lied, looking at my tools, hoping he’d say nothing else.

He just looked, his lips forming into a thin line. Maybe he’d call me on it. Maybe he’d let it sit. The judgment would come. My Power couldn’t save me from it.

“Well, I need you all the way to closing tonight,”

Fuck.

“But I’ve a school project to finish!”

“Well, you can do that downstairs,”

Fuck sake.

"That's Bollocks!"

“”It’s what has to happen, we need the money.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t yell. He just stated the fact with absolute certainty, leaving it a few short moments to sink in, before turning his gaze to the toys on the table. “Unless you want to share the money you used to buy those.”

My body shook. My mind scanned for a way out. I stood, open-jawed, powerless with my Power whirling in neutral.

I did the only thing I could.

“Fuck it!” I screamed.

The oulfella rolled his eyes.

Well, I’m sorry. I can’t fucking help it. One of my friends is about to run the Bakuda gauntlet. The whole city’s about to turn to shit, there’s an Endbringer coming in and I can’t tell you any of that because then…..

Because I know adults can’t be argued with when you’re stuck in a sixteen year old body.

--


My second night in the cape lacked the excitement and glamour of my first. No flashing blades, or adrenaline-fired fist fights. No Nazis. No Glory Girl. No Glory Girl’s awesome rack. No videos live on PHO. No thread talking up my achievements and skill and how awesome my moment had been.


I faced nothing but darkness, shit, and an ice-cold hosing-off at half four in the morning outside the bar to get rid of the smell before packing the costume away.


The true gritty side of being a cape that nobody showed.


I rode home through deserted streets. Even the gangs had gone to bed. Only the drunks, the homeless and the capes remained outside.


My feet carried me up the stairs to the apartment. I’d mastered the art of the silent entry


Only the dog stayed awake late enough to say hello to a tired and yawning Jaeger, a cosy bundle of black fur waiting to soak up all the cold from my body.


Job done. Time to wait. Time to lie in bed, gazing at the reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room.


Time to wonder just what the fuck had gone wrong inside that kid’s head to turn him into such a different person from who I had been.


Maybe you can tell me. If you think you know.

I need help with this. But it needs to wait.


The dog guarded me for the rest of the night.

--

Morning came as it always would.

Morning passed as it always did.

Breakfast found me picking at pop-tarts, alone except for the dog. The dog had to spend the day with the neighbours. Because I amn’t a cruel fuck who locks a dog up all day while he’s away, and neither are my parents.

Little Arya next door got a kick out of Archie. Archie got a kick out of her.

Maybe one day I’d have a little sister just like her.

The thought warmed me to the core, melting the edgelord front away for just long enough for me to get caught smiling.

A little sun shone on my soul, and I didn’t turn to dust. I call it a win, even if I earned more than a few disturbed looks for my momentary good humour before I could hide the evidence inside my sullen black helmet.

Showing feelings in an almost human way? If you want a never-ending train of Irish misery, go read fucking Peig.

The pressure seemed bearable for the time being. I had acted, writing my own story for the first time. The future had become unset. I’d earned some small hand in my own fate.

City streets rolled beneath the wheels of my bike, carrying me towards another school day.

My body ran through the motions of the day. I rode across the same schoolyard as I always did. I chained the bike to its usual lockup, giving my surroundings a quick scan.

The usual morning crowd seemed to have thinned.

Nobody seemed to mind me. My fingers pulled the ignition fuse on the Honda to be sure. A deep breath swallowed a yawn. My hands rubbed the fatigue from my eyes. Robo-Taylor I amn’t.

A wide yawn carried me through the open doors. As always, the fat guard eyed me with suspicion. I glared back at him.

My locker waited, filled with the normal kipple of life; school-books, copies, worksheets from a dozen different classes – even ones I didn’t take, a can of body-spray to replace a shower on a busy day, and the remnants of yesterday’s lunch.

My hand braced me against the shelf as I swallowed another yawn.

Not even the little fizz of adrenaline simmering in my body could keep me awake. And I fucking hated the six-hour-shots.

“Hey man, what’s up,”

My body started. My Power shivered, looming. Damo’s face popped out from behind my locker door. A bleary eyed look over my shoulder greeted him

“Glory Girl’s skirt,” I answered.

Nothing else came to mind. Neither of us felt like laughing. He stood looking at me. I stood looking at him. A deep yawn stretched my jaw wide.

“Jesus dude you look like hell,”

He said it with a smirk on his face. Hell looked down at him through tired eyes.

“I spent last night in a sewer,” my throat croaked out.

He blinked. “Why the hell would you do that?”

I breathed, turning my eyes towards the kipple in the locker, before looking right back at him. “Cape shit,” I covered the truth with the truth.

He looked at me, taking a long breath through his nose, biting his lip for a moment. My Power loomed to life with a quick reminder that I could save our friendship from an awkward moment.

“Just don’t be a dumbass,” he said.

“You know me better than that,” I said, forcing a thin smile to my lips. His expression “I’d regret it if I did nothing,”

“Just don’t be a dumbass, dude,” he repeated.

Yeah, he knew me better than that. He placed a hand on my locker door, threatening to say something else for a moment, before letting it drop and swing by his side. The corridor bustled around us both as it usually did, oblivious.

Gladly basked in the attention of a team of teen girls begging for a better grade. The most popular kid in school at last.

Two ‘brothers’ in their orange medhall Jerseys helped a third along the corridor. He limped along, looking with a black eye and a bandage keeping his nose straight.

My elbow carried the bruise. My nose carried a red mark from where my goggles had pinched. His body carried the rest. I’d seen him the other night. Damien had seen him on the video. Along with every other student in Winslow who fucking hated these gang bastards, and finally had one of them to act as the lightning rod for all of our collective hate, frustration and anger.

A single hand went up from the crowd, terminating with a single raised finger.

“Sieg Heil!”

The laughter started. Followed by fruit-juice. And sure the brothers shepherded him through it, and maybe someone would earn a stomping in return, since appearances had to be kept up, but for the time being, nobody thought it’d be them.

It brought a savage smile to my lips.

Damien looked at me.

I looked at him.

Yeah, I did that.

“Well, his life is ruined,” said Damien.

I couldn’t tell how he felt from that, and I didn’t push the point. He took a breath. I swallowed another yawn. To me, it didn’t sound like he cared at all.

That’s the way things were here in Winslow.

“Man, you’re lucky,” he said, after a moment.

“Huh,”

“You got the easy way out now,” he said. “Away from this shit.”

My brain ground around trying to figure out what in the name of God he was shitting on about. Another yawn escaped my lips. My fingers ran through my hair.

“I feel like shit,” I managed to say.

“Well, day’s about to get a whole lot worse,” he said.

He didn’t know just how much. We had the next episode of the Uber and Leet show, the start of Bakuda’s bombing campaign and World Fucking Affairs.

A faint tapping on the locker door caught my attention. I turned to find a dark-haired girl glaring up at me, like she’d just found out I’d dropped that fly in her soup

“That girl of yours was supposed to do an assignment for me today, but she’s not here yet.” She said. “And now I’m going to fail.”

Every single nerve in my body went cold at once.

“Oh….” I breathed.

I needed an answer to this.

--

Gladly smiled at the class. Taylor’s seat remained empty. So did Akiko’s. So did Sophia’s.

I hated him. I hated the blackbird, greyed up with chalkdust. I hated the white paint on the concrete walls behind him. I hated the wrong world map that sat tagged up on the wall beside the door. I hated the shite wheelie-bin plastic of the seats that sweated on hot days and numbed on every day.

I hated everything about being in that room, with Aki still outside. My hands worked under the table, tapping out a quick message to her phone.

A little green tick on the screen told me she saw it. Thank Christ. The phone buzzed in my hand as she answered. A quick thumbs up.

Okay. Small miracles. What could I do? Try make plans for later, that’d tell me.

::You up for Arcade after scool?

Aki :: K

Okay. She agreed. That means she’s OK. Right, now to see where she is, or will be at any rate.

ick you up on my bike from were?

It took moments for the answer to come back.

Aki :: K
Aki :: My place.

I felt myself grin. My fingers worked.

::Own some n00bs

Autocorrect fixed the ‘P’. We could set ourselves up parasiting free games off people trying to beat us. Like we always did.

Received.

No answer

I waited. Gladly lectured. The world closed down to the phone in my hand. Time ground forward, tic by toc.

Still no answer.

What next? What could I do? The phone pulsed in my hand. My heart stopped. What happened at the other end of the radio connection?

The phone buzzed.

Aki ::K

Why so long? Paranoia on my part? Or something else? Maybe she’d been distracted for a few minutes on her end? Maybe something innocent?

No. Not with Bakuda coming into play.

Something felt wrong. More wrong than I’d thought. The sensation crawled across my skin. I had to try.

::You OK

The answer came back, confidently quick.

Aki:: :thumbsup:

Too quick? My fingers tapped back

::Sure

Seconds timed out. My breath held.

Aki:: :thumpsup:
Aki:: CU l8r

Either she needed to get rid of me, or I had gone off a little too paranoid. Just a smidge. My fingers drummed on the table a moment. My chest drew a breath. A slim smile crawled across my lips.

Off hand, I tapped out a final message just to set the date.

::What time?

The message went out. My power simmered. My body tensed. The world continued to turn. Class murmured along in a sort of Bokeh of sound, out of focus of my mind.

No answer.

I waited.

I counted seconds.

I counted minutes.

My Power pressed against the inside of my skull.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

The universe crushed in around those words as they penetrated through, the lights on reality going down, leaving my hand in the spotlight. Nothing could’ve happened to her but the worst. No innocent explanation existed.

One awful possibility formed, crystal clear in my mind.

A voice from the darkness penetrated my bubble.

“If it’s important enough to be worth sending message during class about, maybe it’s important enough to be worth sharing with the class,”

I looked up at him, still smiling, completely oblivious to reality I lived in. A few giggles circled, hungry for some little tidbit of juicy gossip to suck on for a few hours. Expectant faces stared.

My body numbed. My mind emptied, crushed to a singularity. My power tripped, snapping me back to a point where my hands held a screen still waiting for the message to return to sender. Gladly lectured on, not looking at me yet. A tremor rolled up my arm. My hand clenched tight around the phone, tensioning it out. My breath caught up in my throat.

The phone buzzed its warning again.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

Okay, I told myself, trying to gather my thoughts.

My body quivered, begging me to do more than just sit. I slipped the phone into my pocket before drawing a slow breath, trying to centre myself, trying to kill my worst first instinct.

Alright, I thought, maybe….

“Ian, take it out,” Gladly’s voice interrupted. “I saw you slip it in,”

Teenage giggles followed. A week ago I would’ve laughed too. My head snapped to him, standing there with ruler in one hand, and the other open towards me.

“If it’s important enough to hide, maybe it’s important enough to be worth sharing?”

He still smiled. The class still hungered for gossip. I looked at him like he’d just kicked my dog. The smile fell from his lips.

“It’s not…..serious?”

Everyone waited expecting something. My gaze danced between dozens of staring eyes, fixed on me for the next move. Sparky and Madison silently begged. Damien looked scared – no, worried. Greg grinned, waiting for the bomb to go off.

Everyone expected me blow up, right there and unleash that Irish temper at full volume.

Under the glare of the classroom I had to do something. My mouth opened. The class drew a collective breath.

“What the fuck am I doing here?”

My eyes went to Damien for an answer. He said nothing, looking more like a rabbit under a spotlight. My head snapped to Gladly, who seemed to shiver just a little as my eyes locked with his.

I stood, bundling my notebook and worksheets into my backpack, before slinging it over my shoulder. Gladly’s voice raised a pointless half-hearted protest. I ignored him.

My chair scratched against the floor as I stood. I marched to the door, hearing feet shuffling and chairs moving behind me. A single boot slammed the door open, clattering it against the wall. My heart raced as I ran along the corridors, bootfalls thumping and squeaking on the polished floor, echoing off the steel lockers. Panacea’s new legs carried me faster than I’d ever been able to run before – in any life.

In an hour, I’d be riding the wires, boots aimed at Bakuda’s face. The image thrilled through me.

My locker waited for me with my riding leathers heaped in the bottom.

Boots off. Leggings on over my jeans, fighting against cowhide cut tight-enough to keep the armour in it from moving in a crash. Footsteps charged up from behind me. A shot of panic injected itself into my veins. I fumbled with the waist buttons, racing against a fight with my legs tied.

The school had to try and stop me.

My fingers won the race. I spun round ready for a fight. Damien scrambled to stop

“What the hell was that?” he panted, struggling for breath.

Showing crystal-clear self-awareness, I blinked. “Huh?”

“Something happen?”

I looked at him, my jaw hinging open, words escaping before I could form them. For a half-second, I wondered what I’d even been planning on doing, before catching up with myself and realising I had nothing beyond ‘Go!’

“Aki told me she’d be here today, but she’s not.” I said, rushing the words out. “I sent her a message, to meet after school, and she said okay. I asked her what time, and the connection dropped.”

His face went blank.

Isn’t it obvious? I wondered.

“Maybe her phone battery died or, y’know, she went into a basement.” He said. “Or the AZN’s finally called in their favour,”

I looked down at him. Really? With Bakuda in the city and Lung in prison and all this shit that’s about to happen?

“That’s how it works. You’re in a shitty place and you’re desperate, so you just reach out for help and someone in a colourful T-shirt smiles and says they’ll make it all better,” he gave me a rueful smile. “And it is until they call in the favour.”

Oh.

That had a ring of familiarity to it.

I breathed, catching my thoughts.

He couldn’t understand, because he hadn’t read the story. I thought about just leaving it hang, letting the afternoon do the explanation for me. That seemed unfair somehow. I could afford to at least try explain – see what happened. My mind searched for a way to package it up into nice fifteen-second long chunks.

Something I could take back if the worst happened.

“Bakuda,” I forced myself to say, despite the thing in my head doing loops to stop me. “Bakuda put radio controlled bombs in peoples heads and conscripted them into an army.”

I looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

Brain bug-out horrified. As you’d expect. Welcome to my world. He stared. Like I’d grown a second head on my shoulders and hadn’t noticed yet. My body tensed, a twist forming in my stomach. My Power loomed. I took a breath. Time for the next punch.

If I could tell him about my power, I could tell him about this.

“I spent last night rigging radio receivers to pick up the signal. So I could figure out how to jam it or some shite like that,”

The idea wormed its way into his brain, insinuating itself right into the deepest seat of shuddering terror. My Power screamed at me to shield him from the truth.

What if he asks how I found out? What then? What if he calls the cops – or worse? A thousand different disasters unfolded in my mind.

I forced myself to ignore them. If I could talk about my Power, I could talk about this.

The chance to take it back sailed by and instantly, I wanted to. Sorry, too late.

“Jesus,” Damien’s voice finally peeked out from the safety of his throat. “Like……Jesus.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

He didn’t ask how I knew. He settled himself back against the metal door of a closed locker beside me.

“Fucking anybody,” he breathed.

My breath caught.

Fucking anybody.

A bomb didn’t need to be snuck through security inside a backpack, when you could sneak it inside the person wearing the backpack.

“What can you do?” he asked me.

My mouth opened. I stepped up to the mic, but nothing came out. A wave of nausea rose up to fill the space left inside.

I looked at him, looking to the person with the Power for the answer. You’re the bloody parahuman with phenomenal cosmic Power doing spirals in your brain, what can you do?

“You going to tell the Protectorate?” he asked me.

It sounded more like a suggestion. My hand went to my phone in my pocket, Jaeger’s account waited on PHO. My thumb ran across the keypad.

Message Kid Win, asking for a meeting?

The idea hung around in the back of my mind. Kid Win alone might work. Kid Win might bring along bigger, blue-er friends.

Somehow, I don’t think that big blue bollocks will be too interested in dealing with another bloody teenager who just wants to make a deal.

Worse than that?

What if they asked the really hard questions? I dithered with the idea, trying to work it out anyway, exploring the possibilities, trying to work it all out.

One final thought brought that crashing to the ground.

Remember what happened the last time you thought you could work it all out.

I couldn’t undo any of it.

I couldn’t step back and palm it off. I couldn’t step back a day and not bother coming to school. I couldn’t step back a month and live in those few days forever. I couldn’t put the cape on six months ago and do it fucking right first time. I couldn’t forget that feeling of just hanging there in that instant before gravity took hold, a single step beyond that bloody ledge with no way to step back. No matter how much I wanted to.

My power buzzed in the back of my mind, gloating at me. Want to risk fucking up again? Want to risk regretting again?

My hand still worked my phone between my fingers. Jaeger’s account still waited for me. The idea loomed each time I saw Akiko’s final message. It lingered at the top of every breath.

I had to make a choice. I couldn’t take it back.

I could go to the Protectorate now, with nothing but an empty tip.

Or I could go with something they could actually use. The radio logs, or even the actual detonation commands. Things they wouldn’t have without me.

Like trusting Akiko. Telling everyone about my Power. Donning the cape. Joining the Mill. Even, just telling Damien.

I had my plan. It made sense. I just needed to see it through.

That’s my decision.

I’m sticking to it.

“I need something to tell them first,” I said. “And I won’t get that until tonight.”

He looked sick for a moment. He swallowed it. He looked at the far wall, maybe thinking something would spring from the wall to help, then looked at me again, resigned to his fate.

He didn’t agree?

My Power whispered to me. I could still take it back. Take the other path. Be sure of being right.

A faint smile crawled across his lips “So, what the fuck would’ve happened if I hadn’t stopped you being a moron?”

An amused snort escaped from my nose, chased by a rush of relief. The pressure in my head released. My Power faded. My thoughts cleared.

Things made sense again.

On some level.

We both sat, not saying anything to each other, with the cold metal of the locker doors behind us. Classes continued around us, murmurs of voices escaping under the doors.

Soft footsteps approached.

We both looked up. Gladly loomed over us, looking paternally displeased with the pair of us.

“Do you mind explaining what that was about?”

We looked at each other.

“Just some bad news,” I said, offering him a little white truth. “It’s OK now.”

Gladly had the opportunity to be the absolute prick I’d always pegged him as. I stared him down, pulling myself to my feet, ready to argue. Damien stood behind me. My lips pressed together into a petulant snarl.

His expression softened with sympathy. An uneasy shudder rose through my body.

“I’ll write you boys a pass for now.” He said. “Just promise you’ll go to your next class.”

Thanks, I guess.

He returned to a class that had probably already begun to go wild in his absence, leaving us both alone with handwritten pieces of paper letting everyone know we had a permission to be out of class.

I didn’t look forward to watching the Uber and Leet show. I knew I’d hate myself, if Akiko got herself hurt. But this made sense. It gave me the best chance of doing something right.

The very idea of being chewed up by the Protectorate merchandise machine made my skin crawl. But the alternative would be worse.

I knew that.

Someday soon, I had to face the people who thought they were my parents, and tell them the awful truth. That seemed worse somehow.

And then I had to face a fucking Enbringer.

After that, whatever the fuck happened.

--

The machinery in the school’s workshop drowned out the noises outside the building. Being the only person in the class – including the teacher – who knew how to run the lathes gave me steady work to finish.

The machines had introduced me to the Mill.

The machines took their scrap of flesh as punishment for working while tired.

My Power saved my skin. My brain had begun to shrivel up like a sponge left in the sun. Spots and stars danced along the back of my eyes.

By the time afternoon maths had begun, things at the trainyard had ended. The whispering continued in the back of class. Skitter’d gained some new fans among those who followed the Cape scene.

The die had been cast.

And I’d only recently learned that actually referred to a fucking dice-roll, and not casting metal. Either way, the meaning didn’t really change.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed.

A single message waited onscreen

Aki ::Im OK

In the middle of Afternoon maths, I screamed.

My Power saved my blushes. I huddled over the glowing screen. Sheer fucking joy fired my chest. I didn’t believe in God, but I thanked the fucker anyway. Small miracles saved my soul.

Another message followed.

Aki ::U no?

My joy cooled in a heartbeat. She knew. So I answered.

::Yeah.

Of course I could undo it. My Power damned me with the knowledge that I could make that answer never happen. Eradicate it from history, so she’d never know.

But that served no purpose anymore. I only really had the one answer to give.

One final message came back.

Aki ::Sorry

I wanted her to know that I understood why. That, on some level, I didn’t really see a difference between us. We both hit the bottom. We both reached up for help. And that help damned us both in different ways.

My fingers typed.

::I understand

I waited. I held my breath.

The network answered on her behalf.

::This message could not be delivered to the intended recipient.

Fuck
---

The lights in the pub went dark. The machinery in the basement fell silent. The Cape world, reached out and touched the real world.

The radio lived on, supported by its batteries.

Explosions rocked the city, rattling the windows and sending little fingers of terror crawling down my spine. I wondered if my Power would save me from a bomb upstairs. Or maybe I’d go upstairs and find ten thousand years had passed by in an instant.

That’s how Terror worked. Every little thing out of its usual place gnawed with the possibilities of Horror.

The oulfella had the candles going on the bar, and on every table. Couples made the best of the privacy the gloom gave. A torchlight and a calculator let the oulfella make change and keep the books straight.

Life carried on. The radio kept us updated.

I wondered if it crossed anyone’s mind that we might be targeted. I wondered if they cared. Life had to carry on.

The obvious question still had to be asked.

“Are we going to close?”

Somebody had to say it. I’d feel like an utter shitehawk if the place blew up and I hadn’t at least suggested we shut the doors.

The oulfella broke his summing for a moment to think. He didn’t even look at me. “Not when we do our best night’s business on a Friday,”

How could I disagree? I didn’t feel like arguing the point, missing either the desire or the energy. With a little luck, my Power would save us. Fifteen seconds to duck and cover.

My eyes still shuttled between every handbag, backpack, wallet and purse. In the spark between detonation and destruction, could I save everyone?

“How’re things downstairs?”

Or, are we going to lose the whole bloody lot?

“I can do everything by hand,” I assured. My jaw hinged wide open into a deep yawn. “Like the last time.”

The last power cut, not the last mass-bombing.

He waited for something. I waited for the same thing, propping myself up with a hand against the doorframe.

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you working down there?”

I glanced at my watch. “I’m on me break,”

A raised eyebrow answered me.

“Union rules.” My arms folded across my chest.

Now he looked at me. A couple of heads on the other side of the bar took notice. I glanced at the audience, then at the oulfella looking down at me with that sort of amused disapproval parents normally reserved for toddlers covered in chocolate.

“What Union?”

A smirk crossed my lips. My shoulders shrugged. “Just meself for the time being.” An unexpected yawn punctuated

“It’s your own fault for staying up so late. What were you doing?”

“Studying with a friend,” I lied quickly.

Judging by his amused expression, he assumed something completely different from the truth. Teenagers would be teenagers and all that.

“Just be careful Ian,” he warned.

“I will.”

As careful as I could possibly be, gallivanting through the streets and sewers of Brockton Bay in manoeuvre gear while planning to take on one of the most dangerous villains in the city all by myself

Four sandwiches waited in one of the under-bar fridges – kept cold by the inertia of the bottles around them. The chime on my watch forced me to go back to work before I’d finished the third.

Somehow. Running from valve to valve at the command of a stop-watch got the blood flowing. The body kept moving. The brain shrivelled like a sponge under the sun.

No space remained to worry about Akiko.

Jaeger’s gear waited in a pair sports-bags under one of the vats, hemmed in by crates of bottles and two bags of brewer’s malt. A bundle of wires sprouted from a half open zip, teasing me with possibilities.

My watch reminded me I still had to make it through the next four hours without passing out, despite the beginnings of a headache pulsing in my temples.

I sat for a moment to let my head catch up, glancing at the ghost of my reflection in a dead computer monitor that normally kept the entire system alive.

My eyes closed.

My eyes opened.

The oulfella loomed over me, inspecting me with an amused an amused glint in his eye.

“I think you might want to get to bed early tonight,”

I couldn’t disagree. Especially when the cops mistook me for a drunk on the ride home.

--

Early to bed, early to rise, as the wise man said. My phone woke me at 4.

The dog stared at me as I left, black eyes gleaming with curiousity. His tail ticked from side to side, asking for an explanation.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I warned him, placing a flat palm on his head. My fingers scratched the fur behind his ears. He shook my hand off, ears slapping. The tail continued metronomic tic-toc wag.

Not yet anyway.

Not until I finished this.

The apartment door snicked shut behind me, a single paw scratching on the steel. A torch under my arm lit the blackened corridor, washing out the dim red glow from the exit signs. The better parts of the city had power back. I didn’t have the luck of living in one of the better parts of the city.

The night air tasted of sulphur and ozone, a column of thick smoke rising up from the rig in the bay, drifting across the moon.

Empty streets allowed me to wind the old Honda to exhilarating speed through dark streets. Green lights strobed from the few PRT vehicles parked on street corners, troopers having bigger concerns than a speeding biker.

A few amateur astronomers had decided to take advantage of the surprise darkness, setting their telescopes up on the concrete foundation of an old warehouse long demolished. Sparking braziers kept them warm.

A backfire from the exhaust send them diving for cover.

Sorry. Can’t help that.

I parked the bike in its usual space behind the bar. The CCTV systems recorded nothing without power. A heavy chain through the wheel and frame would keep it safe.

The scent of roast barley and sweet wort lingered in the brewery, tainted by chemical cleaners, and sweat from Jaeger’s costume.

Donning the cape by torchlight took time, fighting against heavy boots and braces I didn’t need anymore, but might’ve given my knees a chance after a hard landing. I hated myself for not taking the care to pack the cables away properly, cursing while teasing tangles apart. It took time to adjust the straps so everything balanced properly and didn’t pull.

I’d gotten faster at it, but still miles from being practiced.

By the time I reached the roof, the first orange gloamings of dawn burned below the horizon.

Green flashes sparked up between distant buildings, chased seconds later by fire-work crackles. A pillar of white flared up to the sky, vanishing in an instant, leaving only the glare in the back of my eyes.

Nobody would mind another cape out in the dark, minding their own business, not with Miss Militia out and about going full-auto on someone popping off canned lightning.

Right. Time to go.

Three rooves in, my phone buzzed in my pocket. My hand flicked it out, half expecting a message from Aki’. That Poker site’s chat app had woken up.

Lib1rn: What has you up so late?
Lib1rn: Or early?
Lib1rn: Up for making some money?

Me: Sry! Busy atm.

Lib1rn: K. Talk soon!

Annoying.

Bringing my phone with me had seemed like a good idea – in case I had a problem or Akiko decided to try make contact. I stuffed it into the battery box, in the space between the terminals. I had a spare voltmeter, some torches, a pack of ‘fresh scent’ wipes, and a first aid kit I’d pulled from under the tail of my bike.

The SIM for my headset still had no credit on it, but it had memory.

It’d have to do.

Crossing the city took less time. A little extra practice made for fewer broken bones this time. The yard had been cordoned off on the surface, a single purple-and-black van sat idling with its green lights flickering, a squad of faceless troopers watching over.

The bulk of the PRT had more important things to worry about.

Nobody guarded the stormdrain I used to get into the sewer.

Berry-scented wipes in the mask-filters proved their value. My torchlight reflected from black, foaming water, slashing around my boots. Flecks of paper and solid debris drifted by. Rats skittered into the distance, claws scratching on brick. Red eyes glimmered in the black, staring at the intruder.

I swallowed a lump of nausea, forcing myself to go forward.

Getting sick inside my mask would be fun.

Again.

The first recorder waited where I’d left it, zip-tied to the top-rung of a greasy ladder. The backs of the blade carriers scratched against the concrete liner of the manhole. I had the thought that maybe bringing the full manoeuvre gear with me had been a bad idea.

I checked the memory card.

A satisfied smirk crossed my face. It’d recorded something. For all my luck, probably PRT chatter and WIFI waffle. It only occurred to me after I’d sloshed back into the water that someone might’ve booby-trapped them to catch any snoopers.

A loud laugh escaped my mouth, reverberating off the slick brick wills. It cackled back at me, resonating. Glowing eyes in the distance fled.

The second and third recorders waited for me. The fourth had been covered in something sticky like pan-grease that I didn’t want to identify. It’d cascaded down the shore, covering the ladder. A chunk of it sloughed off, splattering across the top of my helmet and goggles.

A fresh wet-wipe cleared the worst of it. Another one banished the stink of warm meat from my mask.

An idea sparked in my head. My stomach lurched. I forced myself to ignore it, dropping back into the water below, erupting a fountain of black water, pale foam and other things.

Next time I went out in costume, I promised myself it’d be somewhere far more glamorous than a city sewer, sloshing my way through filth and shite with only the surprised rats for company.

Nothing.

Then again, somebody had the job to maintain all this. Somebody had to clamber down those ladders in full-gas mask and haz-chem to make sure the water flowed, and I’m sure that somebody went home happy to a warm shower afterwards.

And a good paycheck.

“While here I am in taped-up leathers and goggles,” I breathed to myself. The rats didn’t tell me why.

I pulled myself up the final ladder, boots struggling for grip on the grime. Visions of getting dunked in shit-water flashed through my mind, even if my Power would save me before the foetid splash.

At the top of the ladder, I found the worst thing possible.

Nothing.

Had somebody found it?

My breath shook. My hands clasped tight on the rungs, expecting the attack to come from anywhere. The torch on my helmet flashed off dripping water and corroded metal. No strings, no machines, no laser catch-nets. No beeping spheres.

Just a scuff on the rung where it’d been fitted.

Did it fall off?

I clambered down, the ladder, kicking my boot through the water, searching for it by feel. Nothing?

But I remembered tying it on.

Somebody found it.

Somebody took it away.

Fuck.

Rather than wait to get caught, I ran to the stormdrain. Maybe the PRT found it, maybe somebody else. I hoped never to find out. I scrambled up the ladder to the stormdrain that’d let me in.

My elbow hinged it open above my head, heavy iron clanging down to the tarmac. My head popped over the lip.

Feet. A purple and black bodysuit. A very shapely body, and a grinning dirty-blonde in with a single-eye mask. The stylised eye on the breast confirmed my worst fears

“Hi,”

Right. Well, that’s who found it. Not doing this here. Nope. Nope. Nope.

My Power put me halfway down the ladder. I dropped the rest of the way, landing arse-first into the water. Scrabbling to me feet, I ran back picking another manhole.

Heavy cast iron hinged up with a squawk. My eyes peered over the lip.

Feet.

“Hi,” she said again.

My Power triggered, dropping me down into the drain again. Right so. Fuck, if she’s using her Power to follow me, I’ve a problem.

Okay.

What can I do against someone with that sort of artificial intuition?

The rats didn’t answer.

I pondered for a moment. What did I know about Tattletale? A few seconds gave me the answer. Her Power needed something to grow from, a seed of information. She knew where I started, maybe a little bit about me – that might give her a guess at where I ended up.

But introducing some utter randomness, maybe.

I had a coin in my pocket. Heads or tails decided which direction I took. Heads, left, Tails, right. Walking forward, doubling back, according to the dictates of the coin.

I found another manhole – one I hadn’t wired. I asked the coin for permission to take it. Heads for yes, Tails for no.

The coin answered Tails.

I kept walking to the coin. I doubled back again. I circled around, following the coin. A second manhole approached, a shaft of light beaming through the grate.

I asked the coin for permission. It answered heads.

Slowly I climbed. The grate hinged over.

Purple feet.

“Hi,”

My gaze rose to meet that fucking grin.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“Are we going to keep doing this, or are you going to come up here and chat?”

Nope.

This time, I heaved the manhole cover open.



“Hi there,” I said. “You’re looking for a chat?”


I refuse to call the grin she wore Vulpine, but I struggled to come up with a better description. I’d worn it myself, more than once.


“You ready to climb out of there, or will we keep going?”


With no better option, I hauled myself out into the morning sun, dripping shit-water and slime. I scanned around, finding myself in an overgrown stockyard behind a red-brick warehouse. Tattletale herself stood in front of me. Boots on gravel behind drew my attention.


Two tail-wagging dogs, being generously rewarded by their stiff backed mistress gave me all the explanation I needed. That’s how they followed me.


“So, you’re the one who put these receivers here.” She sat herself down on a concete stump, crossing her legs. Her right hand held the grime-covered datalogger I’d built.


Yeah, that’s about as bad as Bakuda herself finding them. I glanced over my shoulder, looking for a quick way out. Dropping down the shore again seemed like the best idea.


The dogs stared, standing themselves on either side, covering without approaching. The tail of the largest tic-toc’d with interest. Her power’d take time to trigger.


“If you hurt my dogs.” Bitch snarled at me, catching my intent.


“You know what a dog does when it’s cornered,” I cut back, my mask hiding my grin. Both trigger sets waited in their holsters. I had a pair of blades. Maybe a good shock would put one down – a second if I got lucky. I’d get enough warning to make the first move. I glanced at both voltmeters, then back up at Tattletale. I glared, feeling the adrenaline rise inside me.


“…that’s not why we’re here,” Tattletale tried to say.


Bitch ignored her. “If you hurt my dogs. My dogs hurt you.”


Just a fact. Nothing more.


“If you two could stop.” Tattletale’s voice cut clear. “Besides, his gear would probably fry itself anyway, it’s so wet. ”


I understood why the Protectorate called her Hellhound. ‘Bitch from the Undersiders’ could get ambiguous.


“So. Why are you, here? Really?” she asked me.


I took a breath, staring at her. “I’m going to let you tell me. I think you know,”


Show your hand.


“I’ll tell you what I know,” She grinned. “I know you didn’t set out to go Nazi hunting with Ol Glory Hole herself, or even do some Tinker testing. Something else brought you out that night, something you couldn’t really prepare for. Something you thought you needed to record. Then you released that video - not to show the world how awesome you are with your fancy swing-catapult, because it’s really pretty basic - but to let someone else know that you had a recording. Because you’re blackmailing them. “


Her Power said all that? From What? My breath quickened.


“I think you know something you really, shouldn’t know,” she finished, doing the Cheshire Cat thing that everyone with a Thinker power did when they just had to show you what they knew.


As Bill said, Baby, you ain’t kiddin’.


A cold chill crawled up mine spine. My hand clenched.


Okay. Maybe her Power got that from the video. It all depended on what she thought I knew. And if nobody in a black fedora showed up, maybe it didn’t matter.


I took a moment, trying to think of my best non-committal, but failed. I’d let my Power save me if it had to.


“The sort of thing that’ll cause an unholy shitstorm if it gets out.”


She loomed without moving, eager to keep going. My Power grew large – maybe once I knew, I could spit it back at he and not be on the back-foot.


Behind me, Bitch’s Doberman mask revealed nothing about the face behind. She waited for me to move.


“Because,” Tatteltale’s eyes gleamed, a single finger touched her lip, like she had a secret to share. “It’s a Ward. It’s a Ward who has something to lose if that recording gets out. If they were just doing the recruitment thing then there’s nothing to hide, so they were probably doing something the Protectorate really wouldn’t like. And, I think it’s somebody you know personally – which means you know them personally…”


Oh. Oh that’s so much worse than bloody fedoras.


“Like I said.” I breathed, keeping my awareness behind me. “I’m new to this, but even I know that when real names get involved, so do real people. And I’ve people I need to protect too, you understand?”


“Yeah, I do.” She settled back, re-crossing her legs. Her eyes never left me. “But that’s just what I got from a single video.” She rested her head on her hand, drumming her fingers on her temple. “So, why are you here? And what are you doing with these? Or would you like to know more?”


The hair on the back of my neck prickled.


I called her bluff.


I wished I hadn’t. That’s all I’ll say.


My Power saved me.



“I found out about Bakuda’s plans. I thought if I found the control signal, I could figure out a way to jam it…. I’d stop her.”


Her expression soured. The dogs stepped claws ticking on concrete. The hair on the back of my neck prickled.


“So. You figure out a way to jam the signal, what’s your next move? You think maybe you can walk up to the Protectorate and tell them, hey, I knew something bad would happen and I said nothing so I’d could get the data and do it all myself, Oh, by the way, here’s what I want….. you know how that sounds?”


…fuck. Again. I gritted me teeth.


“If I jam the signal. I break the one thing she has controlling them…” I started….


Her eyes gleamed. You triggered my trap card. “As opposed to fucking Lung who just escaped three hours ago, or Oni Lee, or that perfectly effective grenade launcher…. An entire bank-full of people know a pistol only holds six shots, but none of them wants to be the one person who gets shot.”


Ah. Even I knew I didn’t think this through. I didn’t need it thrown back at me.


“The hell am I supposed to do then?“ Even muffled by the filters my voice echoed. “I missed it. You want to know how I got here? I found out about it four days ago, when some Ward…. “


My arm swung. Dogs snarled. Images of sharp teeth raced through my mind.


My Power fired, giving me space for my head to catch up. I lurched through thoughts, hating the feeling of being under the microscope.


I wondered if, maybe someway, I could tell her the whole bloody lot and let her power ding-ding-ding off the list, before finally snapping the clock back that one last time so I could just say I told her everything – and she fucking hated it.


I gathered my thoughts. She couldn’t obviously tell if I’d used my Power. I could use it to get space – get out of the moment


“I missed it. I found out a few days ago when that bloody Ward decided to tell me.” There’re two girls on the Ward’s team, and Vista doesn’t count. “When they sort of decided that I needed to be part of some vigilante team going no-holds barred because nobody else will do what needs to be done, and if I didn’t do it, they’d fuck her over,”


“Your video? So you can threaten to go to the Protectorate.”


Her gaze interrogated.


“Nah, I know what they’ve covered up with this already.”


Her expression shifted, becoming almost hungry. Shit.


“A Ward they’ve been covering for?” The gears whirled in her mind. Dots joined.


My Power saved me from giving her something to bite on, lurching back so I could choose my words better, next time.


“Your video?” she asked again, for the first time. The grin on her face softened, her interrogating eyes widening slightly.


“Nah,” I said. “The first rule of the bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy.”


I wondered if she’d noticed. I wondered if any Power-spawned revelations had lingered somewhere in the back of her mind. She didn’t show it.


“So, releasing the video publically, where it can’t be covered up and would probably go viral if they tried, they’ll drop her. Or pull her probation?”


I felt myself smirk inside my mask. I felt Bitch move behind my back. I checked. Her eyes stared. The dogs looked to her.


“Or probably just get –uh - reassigned to a Craggy Island somewhere.” I nearly said ‘her’, letting my cynicism show.


But, in reality, that’s how it usually goes. You can have your fanfic fantasies of a Dreyfuss degredation – that only really happens when the bureaucracy needs a scapegoat to sacrifice to tabloid guillotine to keep them from looking too high.


“And now she’s dealt with, you’re here to rescue you friend?”


I nodded. Now give me the fucking thing.


“In that case, I think I have a proposal to make…” Tattletale waved the logger


I didn’t need to be a genius to put two and two together. I’d dirt on a Ward. I’d a Ward’s name. She had something I wanted, and I had something she wanted. And I knew what cards she held up her sleeve.


And so, Taylor finds out about Sophia and we’re right back at massive Shitstorm, only now, everyone knows who told.


“I amn’t some shitehawk who names names,” I snapped.


She flinched. Footsteps moved behind me. Paws shuffled. Tattletale covered, shifting herself. Her legs uncrossed. I glanced back. Both dogs had stepped forward.


“If the name gets out – how many people outside the Protectorate would know such a thing?”


Smug bitch. So that’s her angle. She already knows. She wants me to do something else.


“So, you know who it is?” My head cocked. “Right well, fuck that. You probably know who to ask about it to then?”


Again, caught just a little by surprise. She almost looked disappointed. But you don’t fucking blackmail me.


The dogs advanced, bodies turning taught, ready for the command. One of my hands went to a holster. You want to do that? Bitch looked ready, but I’d see it coming. Tattletale stood, her face turning stern.


You sure you want to do this, it seemed to ask.


My sanity caught up with my mouth a moment later. Maybe I didn’t want to play the card – not all the way. Lay it face down, just to leave the possibility, but without making the threat. That could get fucked up fast.


“I amn’t so fucking stupid that I don’t know what that means if you know us both. You know someone in there. Now, can we not go to that place because it’s really, really fucking shitey.”


Tattletale reached behind herself anyway. My hand went to my chest, leaving the other one free.


“Stop.”


Not angry. Not snarled. Just a calm, firm statement that left us each looking at each other, wondering what to do next. Bitch being the voice of reason surprised both of us and her voice carried, without being alarming.


“What?” we both said in unison, looking to the puppy mask for an explanation.


“You’re both acting like dogs.”


Just a fact. Nothing more. Look, you even obeyed a command like good little puppies. Fuck sake.


Tattletale tossed the logger at me before I could gather myself. I caught it in both hands, just like she wanted.


She advanced towards me with confident stride. Her hands held steady, just in front of her, at body height. Obviously not making any funny moves. I watched, ready to ditch the logger if I had to.


She stopped, at my shoulder, just out of blade range, fixing me with that smirking stare.


“Don’t jump to conclusions. And try not to get yourself killed or arrested taking the next step.”


“Hadn’t planned on it,” I managed to say, getting the feeling I may have completely misunderstood something very important.


She glanced at me, her smile thinning to a sliver.


I hadn’t planned on anything really.


Tattletale said something to Bitch – something smothered by my helmet. The other girl nodded, body wincing, before whistling after the dogs. Both dogs followed her at her heels.


Only by watching her walk did I realise how badly she’d been hurt – and how well she’d hidden it.


I wondered if the rest of the team had been near – covering in case things got messy. I wondered how well my blades would’ve actually done if I’d had the chance.


Most of all, I wondered just what side of that I’d come out on.


Which meant I probably hadn’t come out on the winning side.


--


I cleaned my gear off behind the bar.


Tattletale had been right about one thing. The water’d gotten in the mic and motors. The motors survived. The mic didn’t.


It recorded nothing but me crackling static.


Tattletale knew me. She knew what happened with Shadow Stalker. Somehow, she’d found her identity too. Maybe through Taylor somehow.


“I know this asshole from your school – has he had any trouble with any students?”


“He tried to get me to join his cheating syndicate to make a point to Sophia Hess – I think she was trying to blackmail him or something. Oh, by the way, she’s the same girl who triggered me.”


Ding.


And of course, if that got out, who’d the Protectorate blame? Just do this one little thing, and it stays quiet. Oh, and this one thing after that – and after that. Something like that.


Just hinting at Taylor cut her off. Guess what, I amn’t a complete fucking moron. That had taken her by surprise. Should that have offended me?


I had the thought that maybe Lisa hadn’t Taylor what she knew yet. I decided it didn’t really matter. It didn’t really matter to me.


I knew Sophia. Sophia knew me. Tattletale knew both of us. She’d drop Sophia in it, to put me in the firing line if I didn’t work for it. But I ‘knew’ Taylor too. It felt like a sort of Mexican stand off, but I couldn’t be sure.


I couldn’t really play the Skitter card anyway. It still felt cuntish. Tattletale probably knew I wouldn’t.


I wondered what sort of favour the Undersiders might try call in. I wondered about going to the Protectorate instead, to get away.


You knew about the mad bomber, and did nothing to stop them?


That wouldn’t go well either, would it? Tattletale had a point there, unfortunately.


So, what next?


I had five memory cards worth of data to sift through for an answer. I had to figure out how to do that first. Then figure out what to do with it when done.


What could I do then?


What could Jaeger do? His goggles didn’t have the answer.


My phone waited on top of the cleaned-up blade carrier. It reminded me - other people had skin in this game. Whether they liked it or not, they needed to know.


I dialled Damien’s number. He answered on the third ring.


“Hey man, what’re you doing?”


“Shitposting in a magical place, you?”


“Working some things out. We need to talk“


“What happened?”


“I need somewhere quiet and private”


“Shit. My dad’s little hunting cabin?”


“Sure.”

"And Bring your old man's shotgun."

I glanced at Aki’s profiles. None online since yesterday.

--